Step-by-Step: The Food Lab's Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies (2024)

What makes my Best Chocolate Chip Cookies so tasty? The ingredients aren't really all that unique. It's the process that does it. Brown butter, whipped egg whites, chopped chocolate, and an overnight rest all contribute to their finished flavor and texture. Sound complicated? Don't worry, the recipe is quite easy, and now it's easier than ever with new step-by-step photos to walk you through the process.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
It took weeks of nonstop testing and more than 1,500 cookies to develop this recipe. It delivers chocolate chip cookies that are just crisp around the edges, with a buttery, toffee-like crunch that transitions into a chewy, moist center, which bends like caramel and is rich with butter and big pockets of melted chocolate. They're cookies with crackly, craggy tops and the complex aroma of butterscotch. And, of course, that elusive perfect balance between sweet and salty. Here's how to make them.
The Ingredients
The real trick to these cookies is in the process, not the ingredients. The ingredients are pretty standard (other than the ice cube, which we'll get to in a moment): 8 ounces unsalted butter (2 sticks; 225g), 1 standard ice cube (that's about 30mL of frozen water), 10 ounces all-purpose flour (about 2 cups; 280g), 3/4 teaspoon (3g) baking soda, 2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt or 1 teaspoon table salt (kosher salt is less dense than table salt, hence the distinction; both volumes should weigh 4g), 5 ounces (140g) granulated sugar, a couple of large eggs, 2 teaspoons (10mL) vanilla extract (artificial works just fine in this instance), 5 ounces (140g) dark brown sugar, and 8 ounces (225g) semisweet chocolate. I use a whole chocolate bar cut into chunks, which gives you better, more varied texture in your finished cookies than chocolate chips.
Brown Butter
Here's the first trick: Brown the butter to give it a more complex, nutty, toasty aroma. You do this by heating the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, making sure to swirl it constantly to help prevent it from violently bubbling or becoming too dark. Golden brown is what you're after. Once the butter has reached just shy of its final color (about 5 minutes), remove it from the stovetop and keep swirling for about 15 seconds longer until it's finished, then immediately pour it into a bowl to prevent it from cooking any more.
Chill Brown Butter
Whisk that ice cube into the butter. This not only helps the butter cool down faster (it has to be completely cooled before we can add it to the dough), but also returns some of the moisture content that's been driven off during the browning process. Once the ice has melted, place the bowl in the refrigerator while you work with the remaining ingredients.
Continue to 5 of 22 below.
Cooled Brown Butter
The brown butter should be starting to solidify by the time it's ready.
Whisk Together Dry Ingredients
Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
See Also
9 Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes, Because One Isn't Enough David Lebovitz's Chocolate Chip Cookies The (Food) Science of Chocolate Chip Cookies 🍪 - Cravings of a Food Scientist food science: chocolate chip cookies (episode 1) - devil's food kitchen
Combine Eggs and Sugar
Combine the eggs with the granulated sugar and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.
Whisk the Eggs
Start whisking the eggs at medium speed. The goal here is to dissolve the sugar while incorporating air into the egg mixture in order to help the cookies bake up light and crisp.
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Eggs Ready
The eggs are ready after about 5 minutes, when the mixture is pale yellow and falls off the whisk in smooth ribbons when you lift it out of the bowl.
Add Brown Sugar and Butter
Add the brown sugar and the cooled brown butter to the mixer, swapping out the whisk for the paddle attachment.
Beat in Brown Sugar and Butter
Mix at medium speed just until the brown sugar and butter are incorporated, about 15 seconds.
Add Flour
See Also
The Food Lab's Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
Add the flour and mix at low speed.
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Don't Over-mix!
The goal is to just barely incorporate the flour, about 15 seconds. It's okay if there are still a few small pockets of dry flour. Over-mixing the dough at this stage will develop excess gluten, causing the cookies to become tough.
Add Chocolate
Add the chopped chocolate to the bowl and, once again, mix just to incorporate the chocolate, about 15 seconds. Ideally you'll have a wide variety of chocolate pieces in the mix, ranging from big chunks that melt into rich, gooey pools of chocolate to thin shavings that weave their way through the dough.
Finished Dough
The finished dough should look like this and taste even better. But try to stop yourself from eating it. In fact, stop yourself from even baking it today. Good things come to those who wait...
Give It a Rest
This is the most important step of the whole process: letting the dough rest. Put it in a bowl, cover it, and let it sit in the refrigerator until the next day. This accomplishes a few goals: First, it allows time for the flour to hydrate fully, making for tenderer cookies. More importantly, it gives time for enzymes to go to work, shearing down carbohydrates so that they form more aromatic compounds the next day. Your cookies come out much richer and more complex, with deeper butterscotch flavors.
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Portion
When you're ready to bake, adjust your oven racks to the upper- and lower-middle positions and preheat the oven to 325°F. Use a 1-ounce scoop to place heaping balls onto either a parchment-lined baking sheet or a nonstick baking sheet.
Arrange
Each ball should be about 3 tablespoons, and you should be able to fit around 8 balls per baking sheet.
Tear...
For a craggier surface, tear each ball of dough in half...
...and Reassemble
...and stick the two halves back together with the torn sides facing outward.
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Bake
Once you've torn and pressed all the cookies, place them in the oven and bake until they're golden brown around the edges but still soft, 13 to 16 minutes, rotating the pans back to front and top to bottom halfway through baking.
Salt and Serve
While the cookies are still hot, sprinkle with some coarse sea salt, pressing it down slightly so that it embeds into the top of the cookies. Let them cool for about 5 minutes on their baking sheets, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days (if they even make it that long).
The Food Lab's Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Step-by-Step: The Food Lab's Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies (2024)

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

The Ingredients

Brown Butter

Chill Brown Butter

Cooled Brown Butter

Whisk Together Dry Ingredients

Combine Eggs and Sugar

Whisk the Eggs

Eggs Ready

Add Brown Sugar and Butter

Beat in Brown Sugar and Butter

Add Flour

Don't Over-mix!

Add Chocolate

Finished Dough

Give It a Rest

Portion

Arrange

Tear...

...and Reassemble

Bake

Salt and Serve

References